It’s somewhat strange that I would be spoiled about Buffy while watching How I Met Your Mother, but when Harry Groener recently appeared in an episode of the series my Twitter feed lit up about the reunion of sorts between he and Alyson Hannigan, for he played Sunnydale’s mayor. At that point in my run through the series, I had heard Principal Snyder raise the Mayor’s name in a somewhat ominous fashion, so it meant that I started to read into those type of comments a bit more carefully. I still didn’t know any details about who the Mayor was, but I did know that he was going to play somewhat of an important role.

I ended up speculating a lot in my head about who the Mayor was, and whether his introduction would successfully solve how it is that the citizens of Sunnydale seem perfectly content to be living on a Hellmouth. One of the benefits of this project is that the commenters have been telling me this for a while, suggesting (without spoiling, which I am grateful for) that they may be more aware than I had imagined, so I’ve had a lot of fun discovering that they were quite right.

The Mayor of Sunnydale is the absolutely perfect antagonist for the series, a wonderful mashup of the show’s supernatural forces and corrupt politicians which simultaneously humanizes monsters of the week while demonizing humanity. I’ve yet to scratch the surface of the Mayoral influence, but I’m certainly already appreciating the new face of “evil.”

When I wrote about “Surprise” and “Innocence,” I entered into the posture I tend to take at certain points along this journey: when you know that things eventually get very dark and complicated, you tend to cry wolf at any sign that things are becoming very dark and complicated. It was clear from fan response that these two episodes represented a turning point of sorts, and watching them you see a dramatic character transformation that does in fact “change” the series in a way that seems pretty substantial.

However, the interesting thing about the episodes which follow “Innocence” is that the changes are for the most part subtle rather than substantial. While people tended to agree with my statement that Angel’s transformation represents a true “game-changer,” I have a feeling that the impact has more to do with the series’ long term changes than with any sort of immediate shift in the series’ narratives. While you could argue there is now more darkness in Buffy’s world, that doesn’t really change the tone of the series, nor does it dramatically alter the kinds of stories the show decides to tell.

Rather, the changes during this period come in the form of the supernatural becoming personal, with supernatural phenomenon presenting itself (primarily) in ways that tap into something inherent to these characters rather than inherent to the Hellmouth or some sort of demonic power. It’s a subtle shift in the series’ dynamics, but it is nonetheless a fairly important development which reinforces the events of “Innocence” within, rather than against, the series’ typical narrative structures.

Going into “Prophecy Girl,” I was expecting something big – everyone had indicated that this episode, as Whedon returns to writing and takes over directing duties, is when the show finally finds itself. Because I know that the series is going to eventually become heavily serialized, and that the first season finale is supposed to be the start of that push towards more complex stories, I expected to have all sorts of new potential to be writing about.

Instead, I’ve discovered that “Prophecy Girl” is ultimately a subtle rather than substantial shift in the series’ trajectory, a question of execution rather than some sort of creative shift. With Whedon behind the camera, the emotional resonance of the episode and its stories is the strongest its been thus far, and there are a couple of pretty key bits of character development which sort of clears the slate heading into the second season. However, produced like many first season finales, you can tell that this was either a beginning or an end depending on if the series was picked up, and so it spends as much time resolving as it does complicating.

The result is that all of my prophecizing and pontificating about earlier episodes is probably more substantial than what I have to offer about “Prophecy Girl”: it was entertaining and emotional, and signals the show is coming into itself quite nicely, but it’s only made me anxious to move on already. However, I made a promise to write about it, so some thoughts on the finale and the first season overall are necessary at this stage in the Cultural Catchup Project.

For those who have waited patiently for me to get through the fairly short first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a process which has taken a week longer than it would have under normal circumstances, you’ll have to wait a little bit longer: while I’m about to get to “Prophecy Girl,” which everyone seems to be labeling as the show’s turning point, there’s a few observations I want to make about the show before I get into the finale and trying to contend with what the season is accomplishing.

Like any first season, this was obviously a learning experience for Whedon and his crew of writers – to borrow the ominous message from “Out of Mind, Out of Sight,” Whedon’s job was pretty much to “Look, Learn, Listen” to the effectiveness of these episodes. What struck me about the three stories which lead into the finale (“The Puppet Show,”“Nightmares,” and “Out of Mind…”) is that they all offer subtly different takes on the show’s central premise, each using the Hellmouth (which, yes, I’ve discussed before) as the source of a different kind of phenomenon: while the diversity speaks to the endless potential to the Hellmouth, the varying quality of the episodes indicates that even subtle differences in function can heighten the dramatic interest in a pretty substantial fashion.

And yes, you’ll have to read my thoughts on that before I get to the finale, so long as your patience hasn’t run out already.